The Land of Legends Theme Park located in Kadriye, about 40 minutes outside of central Antalya, is on of Turkey's biggest entertainment resorts. Including a massive water park, a shopping avenue complete with night time show, an on-location hotel and of course, the theme park itself, the Land of Legends Resort has been on many a theme park enthusiast's bucket list since it opened in 2016. When the park's Mack Rides hypercoaster, aptly named Hyper Coaster, opened in 2018, I knew it was somewhere I wanted to visit and so this summer we did something very out of character and booked a package holiday to a bougie Turkish all-inclusive hotel, located just ten minutes down the road in Belek, with the intent on visiting Land of Legends as part of our vacation.
The Land of Legends has always been a strange one for me - it opened originally as a water park and the theme park came a few years later as a sort of expansion, which makes sense given its location in a tourist hotspot with gorgeous weather almost year-round. Water parks are a staple for this kind of holiday location, theme parks not as much, so it does make sense that the park itself is a little on the smaller side as opposed to the other way around that we're maybe used to seeing. Think of it very much as a water park first, with a few coasters thrown in for good measure!
For clarity, this will largely be a review of the theme park as that is where we spent most of our time, however I will mention the water park here and there. We did not stay on Resort in the hotel so I can't comment on that but I will also go into a bit of detail about the shopping avenue too. And, as always, this is MY review of the place, and therefore my thoughts and opinions. I always want to do my best to be as up front and honest as possible about the experiences I have, and sometimes things aren't all rainbows and sunshine, so please bear that in mind.
First up then, the rides themselves. As mentioned, the theme park itself is quite small and as such there are not a ton of rides. Hyper Coaster is obviously the crown jewel in terms of thrill rides, supported by Typhoon Coaster (an Intamin Water coaster), a couple of kiddie coasters, a handful of flat rides, a splash battle and a family boat ride. It's also worth mentioning that some construction was taking place during our visit on an expansion featuring Nickelodeon, Paw Patrol and Star Trek IP, but I couldn't find any info on what rides/attractions this expansion might entail.
Of course, being a coaster enthusiast, Hyper Coaster was the best ride here for me by a long way. Unfortunately we only managed one ride on this beast as it shut for the latter half of the day due to high winds, but we got one incredible back row ride and it was hauling ass. The first drop is wicked and quickly reaches speeds of 70mph plus before rotating you through a huge vertical loop that encircles the lift-hill, Kumba-style. Following this is an out-and-back style layout packed with airtime and a zero-g roll for good measure. It's a seriously great coaster, not top ten material for me but really fun nonetheless and makes me very excited for Project Exodus at Thorpe Park next year. I just wish we'd been able to ride it a few more times!
Typhoon Coaster is nothing to write home about in my opinion - I don't have much love for these Intamin water coasters, I find them fairly forceless, despite how impressive that first drop looks. I DID love that this one had a little pre-lift hill indoor themed section that weaved through shipwrecks and such, this was a little touch of something extra that made a generally unremarkable coaster slightly more memorable.
Family Coaster was a little standard Gerstlauer family coaster layout, again fun but nothing to write home about. We were not permitted to ride Zippy Zappy Coaster, an SBF Visa family sit down affair, as we didn't have kids with us so be warned if you count credits as this is one you're unlikely to get if you're visiting during high season.
My second favourite ride at the park was actually the family boat ride named A Joyful Journey, themed after an IP I'm not familiar with called Masha and the Bear. This was VERY cute - it was your standard sit down family boat ride setup, taking you past scenes with characters and the like, but each scene was themed to a different season and any ride that starts with a room full of jack-o-lanterns is obviously a winner in my book. The scenes were all very detailed, with great animatronics, music, lighting and animation that made the whole experience very vibrant and endearing. I loved it.
It was extremely hot so we didn't do any of the flat rides as they were all spinny type things, and the park is also home to a large Splash Battle at the centre of the park which looked fun but I tend to avoid riding these as I don't like getting drenched at parks (yes, even in 40 degree+ heat!) Something we did notice is that a lot of the flat rides looked like cheaper, funfair flat rides as opposed to 'proper' theme park flat rides, which felt a little strange in amongst the bigger, more expensive hardware and a bit of a juxtaposition.
The theming in Land of Legends is bizarre, because from a distance it looks very impressive and beautiful and detailed. It feels bright and modern and finessed, and yet when you look a little longer/closer you realise that actually it's a little cheap and random and thrown together?
In my Twitter thread I used the analogy of getting a commitee to design a horse and ending up with a camel - it felt to me like there was no one vision or clear direction for what the theming should be, so it is a bit hodge podge. There are areas that are spectacular - the steampunk themed Splash Battle being one of them and the Turkish-inspired fantasy castle in the shopping avenue being another. These are gorgeous, and feel 'proper'. Then you have the likes of Hyper Coaster, with a huge train and animatronics in the queue line that are just begging out for more detail, more finesse. It feels like there is a big idea in there somewhere but without the expertise to execute it properly and so things feel unfinished/half-arsed.
All of the coaster stations actually, feel impressive when you first walk in then you realise you're stood in a box with a few pictures on the wall that don't make a lot of thematic sense. There's also random statues strewn about here and there that don't make sense with anything else nearby - two robots that say 'Land of Legends' underneath the Greek mythology themed Typhoon Coaster, or the random horse statue in the middle of a walkway. Some of it was quite slap dash and took away from the other areas that were really great - some of it felt a little Camden Market if that makes any sense?
Oh god, here we go then. Look, firstly, I appreciate it was HOT during our visit, so I would in no way expect staff to by running around dispatching trains like crazy. But from my perspective the whole operation seemed very disorganised. Hyper Coaster, the biggest ride in the place, was operating on one train meaning it had at least a 30 minute queue all day despite the park being fairly quiet. The ride op was not paying attention, and the hosts had to yell at her from the platform to get her to dispatch. Hosts were also not batching guests efficiently and were giving confusing instructions, leading to chaos on the platforms. This was even worse on the water slides. It's definitely not the worst I've ever seen but it definitely could have been better, and is particularly frustrating when it is a) very hot out and b) not actually that busy.
My other big operational gripe is the pre-paid wristbands. The park is cashless, which is fine, a lot of parks are these days, however at Land of Legends you must first visit Guest Services and load a wristband with cash. But truthfully, who knows how much they will spend during a day, especially at a park you've never visited before and have no concept of how much things are? Should we load 100€? 200€? We opted for 60 to start with, and wanted to grab a coffee to start our day only to find the cashless payment system not working. So we couldn't buy anything and had to wait around for them to fix it. Great...
Further, you have no way of knowing how much you're really spending or how much is left on the wristband unless you find one of the (very few) pay points once inside the park. We actually made our way through the original 60 and had to add more, but only found this out whilst trying to pay, not having enough, then having to wander around, top up, go back and try again. It is incredibly time-wasting and frustrating - I don't understand why they don't go for the Rulantica option of having you tap throughout the day then pay your bill at the end?
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Unless they get something major I probably wouldn't be that fussed on going back to the Land of Legends Theme Park. We had a good day all in all and loved our ride on Hyper Coaster but between the strange mish-mash of theming and the lacklustre ride line-up it doesn't offer much else for me - especially given the £80pp ticket price. Realistically we could have done another day here for the water park too, as that is huge, but the price was too high for us to justify it so we opted out.
I would, however, go back to the shopping avenue. It feels like something out of Vegas, with cool, air-conditioned shops to browse, a beautiful themed environment to explore and a brilliant night-time show to enjoy to see out your day. That was the highlight for me over anything the theme park had to offer, and that is free to enjoy!
Have you visited the Land of Legends Theme Park in Turkey? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!
Talk later xoxo,
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